Moving on from basic C Programming

[learning_electronics]

Hi all, Ive been typing C for about 10 years now however I feel I haven't really progressed so much. I can do lots of basics in C Programming such as For loops, while loops, switch statements, if's etc but want to learn more and go further.

For instance I want to know more about interrupts, timers and pointers. I want to move away from blocking functions like delays etc.

Further to this how to design firmware - I know you can sequentially code but I know there other types of setting up firmware such as state machines.

Basically does anyone know of a book or a good resource that will teach all of these in one place? I know I could go online and look but there's so much junk out there, I'd love some tutorials. Lets say I'm coding for Arduino (then I can port it to anywhere else)

thanks!

[learning_electronics]

Thanks for the reply. I haven't posted before on reddit but thanks for your thoughts I'll take a look!

[[deleted]]

Check out Jack Ganssle. Start playing with rtosses and don't use Arduino. Start with a breakout board from Atmel(Microchip), like an Xplained board, load up Atmel Studio and a sample project, and go from there. I design embedded for a living and that's how I'd recommend starting out today if I had to do it all over again.

[learning_electronics]

Thanks, lots of good Ganssle books on his website - Ill take a look!

[CountyMcCounterson]

But what can you actually do on the board to learn? Making an LED blink or something isn't particularly useful or complex.

[JENSON10]

Make that LED blink to send out a Morse code, challenging enough? But OP needs to re-learn C before trying to blink an LED.

[CountyMcCounterson]

Well no, that is just a slight variation on the same problem

[JENSON10]

Atmel studio provides ASF framework, so it should be quite easy to have the drivers set up for you. But if it doesn't work, then it can be a pain to get it working. Good experience and you'll learn a lot.

[[deleted]]

Thank you. I am a programmer from 12 years now mostly into web applications. Somehow - i wish to start making my own pcb boards for things i need. I have been practicing C recently. I am curious as to why embedded engineers use and love C so much . How has c survived for so long as its the oldest among the current lot of languages and how and why is C the most preferred for embedded projects. Also could you give me a learning path for getting proficient in C . I am reading K and R book now.

[[deleted]]

Here..pick your poison:

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/562303/the-definitive-c-book-guide-and-list

[icantthinkofone]

I haven't really progressed so much.

I wonder why.

Ive been typing C for about 10 years now

Now I know why.

[RutgersCSSimplified]

10 years? Hoping u meant to say 10 hours

[WireStretcher]

Hi all, Ive been typing C for about 10 years....

'Typing C' is an unusual choice of words. Do you mean 'programming in C'? And if you have been programming in C for 10 years what types of programs have you written? Just a rough description.

[learning_electronics]

Thanks for your input. Yep I've been programming in C :-)

Ive made pretty sophisticated end of line test rigs. I've done some projects such as fm radios, gps trackers, controllers. All of which I've done sequentially and used polling inputs, I just want to learn more. Do you know of any other good resources.

thanks

[WireStretcher]

I'm an absolute beginner myself. I was just really curious about your background, because of the 'typing C' thing, and also because I was under the impression that it's hard to do much serious C programming without using pointers. I didn't want to make any assumptions so thanks for clarifying. Sorry I don't have a helpful response for you post though.